Domestic excludes the payment of commissions in the Bombers tenders, but acknowledges “dysfunctions”

The Department of Home Affairs maintains this there is “no hint” that senior officials of the Generalitat Bombers had financially benefited from the contracts of the body investigating the legal system, but recognizes “episodes of inadequacy” for “dysfunctions” in the bidding processes.

Sources from the ‘ministry’ ensured that they act with “total transparency” before the judicial inquiry into the dome of the Generalitat Firefighters including the Director General of Prevention Joan Delort- for alleged irregularities in inflated invoices and alleged payment of commissions in the body’s vehicle maintenance service.

According to these sources, there is so far “no indication” that domestic officials have benefited financially from the contracts under investigation. they also did not “maneuver” to benefit the winning company, the Sevillian Iturri SA.

Bidding processes

The Department of Home Affairs attributes the irregularities investigated to “malfunctions” in the tender and maintenance procedures for the vehicles, which, they say, over the past five years produced “recurring episodes of insufficient credit”.

The same sources indicate that since the beginning of the legislature, the current team of Home Affairs – led by Councilor Joan Ignasi Elena, of ERC- is “back” the situation, with measures going through an improvement in the management of the governing bodies of the execution of the contracts, a bidding process that expands the competition and a adequate budget allocation to meet the “real needs” of the service.

As stated by the Department of Home Affairs, in the last 20 years the preventive and corrective maintenance service of the vehicle fleet of the General Directorate of Fire Prevention and Extinction (DGPEIS).

This service has a high level of complexity, they add, both due to the uniqueness of the firefighters’ vehicles and the need to provide the service to the entire area and with permanent availability.

Bid only

Since 2002, the company Iturri SA has always been the winner of all tenders which was processed by this service and in virtually all of them it was the only bidder.

According to Interior, the procedure consisted of the fire stations that made the initial requests, the DGPEIS or the emergency regions that ratified it and, thereafter, the company that did the repairs, in own or joint workshops.

It generated, adds the ‘conselleria’, a “significant delay” in the invoice made it difficult to control availability of credit, which eventually caused, of a certain time of the year, the orders will generate an invoice for which aor there was credit coverage available.

Credit almost depleted in March

In fact, at the end of March 2021, the invoicing offered by Iturri SA – whose person in charge in Catalonia is also charged – it already consumes 71% of the available annual credit.

On 3 May 2021, the Department adds, the Secretary-General opened a reserved information, which closed on 21 May –five days before Elena’s inauguration and barely two weeks before Delort did so– and it was decided to send the file to the Public Prosecutor and the Mossos d’Esquadra.

After an “initial assessment” of the situation, the ‘conselleria’ adopted several “urgent” measures, including the settlement of the contract with Iturri by expects “imminent depletion” of credit, writes the service specifications for 2022, with a 46% more budget, and commissioned an audit of billing.

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In November, four simplified contracts were awarded, one of them to a company other than Iturri.

With these actions “it is planned to restore the normality of the maintenance service in the first quarter of 2022, with a adequate budget allocation not to fall back into credit inadequacy ”, the department guarantees.